The nation Tour of The Lion King premiering Feb. 15 at the Landmark Theater. Lion King will play at Landmark Theater through March 11, 2012 in Richmond, VA.

Lion King Musical Preview Video:

“I defy anyone to watch the opening scene and not get goose bumps,” said Michael Reilly, who has spent nine years with versions of “The Lion King” and is the puppet supervisor for the national tour. If anyone should be inured to the musical’s alchemy, it’s Reilly: As the guy in charge of maintenance on the show’s 230 or so puppets, he sculpts, paints, troubleshoots electric and mechanical systems, and more.

Zazu, a bird puppet, has gears so tiny that Reilly and his two assistants use miniature tools to work on the costume. The attributes of Scar, a lion character, involve microcircuitry. And no matter how complex and delicate, the masks and puppets are heavily used. “They’re like museum pieces that are being used as jackhammers,” Reilly said, speaking by phone from Minneapolis, where “The Lion King” was performing in mid-January.

The wear and tear is unavoidable because masks and puppets are pivotal to the aesthetics of the 1997 Broadway musical directed by theatrical innovator Julie Taymor.

“We sort of dabbled with a new approach to theater that allowed the characters to be done in a very magical way” without diminishing “the importance of the human actor,” said Michael Curry, who collaborated with Taymor on the show’s mask and puppet designs.

“The Lion King” also has been a milestone event for puppetry, said Vincent Anthony, executive director of the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. He points out that “The Lion King” proved to producers that live puppetry could be successful on a big scale, opening the doors for subsequent Broadway shows such as “Avenue Q” and “War Horse.”